Spare-part Andrew Alberts being fitted for D in Big D

Defenceman Andrew Alberts of the Vancouver Canucks stickhandles past Joe Pavelski of the San Jose Sharks during NHL pre-season action in San Jose, Calif. Alberts is expected to play Thursday in Dallas against the Stars.

Photograph by: Marcio Jose Sanchez
, The Associated Press Files

DALLAS — Ryan Stanton is in Vancouver and Frank Corrado remains in Utica. That means Andrew Alberts gets to play tonight in Dallas.

Stanton, who suffered an apparent left ankle injury Tuesday in Minnesota, was shipped home for further evaluation, coach John Tortorella said after Wednesday’s practice in Dallas.

And with no apparent plans to call up Corrado from the AHL’s Utica Comets, Alberts will get a chance to play when the Canucks meet the Dallas Stars.

Alberts had an earlier chance to play a couple of weeks ago when Alex Edler went down with a knee injury and only lasted three games before the Canucks recalled Yannick Weber from the minors.

Tortorella acknowledged Wednesday he is concerned that Alberts hasn’t played enough to help the team.

“That is the reason why we have Webs in,” Tortorella said. “He had some game looks in the minor leagues. Andrew has practised hard with us, but just hasn’t had a lot of game time in any league.

“But it is what it is, he is going to go in, we are not going to whine about this. All teams go through it, we just have to find a way to be the best that we can be.”

It has been a difficult season for Alberts, who has played in only six games, averaging less than six minutes a night.

Alberts is happy to get another chance, but understandably is tired about talking about his situation. “You obviously want to get more minutes, but it’s the coach’s discretion and they have got some stuff they want me to work on and that is kind of the holdup,” Alberts said. “Right now we are just talking about reads and recognizing situations. It’s something we looked at on tape and that I have been working on in practice. Hopefully I can learn from that, get better every day, use that in the games and get more minutes.”

Tortorella acknowledged that Stanton is gone at least through the Christmas break and said Edler is not close to returning.

“He’s still a ways away. I can’t even say day-to-day. It’s after the break and who knows where from there.”

OH SHOOT-OUT: A day after his “we suck in the shootout” comment, Tortorella acknowledged the team may have to become even more aggressive in overtime to try to win games and avoid the penalty-shot competition.

The Canucks are 1-4 in shootouts this season after dropping a 3-2 decision Tuesday when all three Vancouver shooters failed to score. The Canucks have scored on only two of 18 shootout attempts this season.

“We talked about three forwards maybe some time in the last couple of minutes (of OT),” Tortorella said. “It certainly isn’t working with the shootouts. That could come into play.”

Tortorella said the possibility of pulling the goalie in OT has also been discussed.

“We were talking about it last night after the game, do you pull your goalie, or something like that?”

The team did not practise shootouts on Wednesday and Tortorella said there is a reason for that.

“It’s easy to say they can practise the shootout, but you are in a practice arena, no fans around, no pressure, no other team in there ... it is very difficult to simulate a shootout,” he said.

Assistant general manager Laurence Gilman said the Canucks put Hamill on unconditional waivers after he left the Utica Comets.

This has been brewing for a while. Gilman said he got a call from Hamill’s agent two weeks ago.

“He was out of the lineup, he wasn’t happy and he wanted to leave the team,” Gilman said Wednesday.

“We asked him to give it 10 more days to see how things progressed. I received a call in Minnesota on Monday from his agent saying that Zach had enough and was leaving the team.

“We immediately suspended him and notified him that unless he came back we were going to place him on waivers for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release and if he cleared waivers we were terminating the contract.”

Hamill, a 25-year-old Port Coquitlam native, was selected eighth overall by the Boston Bruins in the 2007 draft. He signed as a free agent with the Canucks this past summer. It’s likely that Hamill will now try to play in Europe.

“As an organization, if players are that unhappy and don’t want to be here then we don’t want them to be here either,” Gilman said.

Defenceman Andrew Alberts of the Vancouver Canucks stickhandles past Joe Pavelski of the San Jose Sharks during NHL pre-season action in San Jose, Calif. Alberts is expected to play Thursday in Dallas against the Stars.

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